John v. Bridgeport Board of Education

United States District Court, D. Connecticut

April 4, 2018

BARBARA JOHN, Plaintiff,v.BRIDGEPORT BOARD OF EDUCATION, Defendant.

RULING AND ORDER

Robert
N. Chatigny United States District Judge.

Plaintiff
Barbara John, an African-American female, claims that the
Bridgeport Board of Education (“BBOE” or
“the Board”), the only remaining defendant in
this action, failed to promote her to the position of
Director of Athletics, Health and Physical Education
(“the Director” or “the position”)
because of her race and sex in violation of Title VII, 42
U.S.C. § 2000 et seq. The Board has moved for
summary judgment and an award of attorney's fees. Because
plaintiff has presented sufficient evidence from which a
reasonable factfinder could conclude that her race and gender
were motivating factors in the Board's decision, the
Board's motions are denied.

I.
Background

The
following facts are undisputed or, if disputed, are supported
by the summary judgment record viewed in a light most
favorable to the plaintiff.[1] In 2012, the Board posted
a job opening for the position of Director. The advertisement
listed the following “requirements”: master's
degree in health, physical education or a “related
field”; successful experience as an athletic coach;
five years of experience teaching health and/or physical
education; Connecticut certifications in immediate
supervision, health, physical education, and coaching; and
the ability to effectively implement and manage budgets and
personnel. Plaintiff applied for the position as did James
Denton and Neil Kavey, both white males. All three were
interviewed for the position. Kavey was ultimately selected.

At the
time the candidates applied, all three were current BBOE
employees. Denton was the acting Director. Plaintiff had
worked for BBOE for forty-two years as a health and physical
education teacher. She had a master's degree in physical
education and many years of coaching experience beginning in
the late 1970s and continuing through 2012. She had all the
required certifications except for health, and also had
certifications in first aid and swimming. Kavey had worked
for BBOE for twenty-seven years. He was a physical education
teacher from 1986 to 1994 and a school counselor from 1994 to
2012. He had a bachelor's degree in physical education
and a master's degree in school counseling. He had the
required certifications except for health and
coaching.[2] Kavey's resume stated that he had
coached high school and college sports teams from 1976 to
1986.[3]

The
candidates were interviewed by Chief Administrative Officer
Dr. Sandra Kase and Deputy Chief Academic Officer Teresa
Carroll.[4] According to the Board, the
interviewers asked a series of pre-determined questions,
including the following: “With district budgets
becoming more and more constrained, how would you manage your
resources to provide equity and access to sports for all
students.” After the interviews, Kase recommended Kavey
to Superintendent Paul Vallas.[5] Vallas met with Kavey
and, based on Kase's recommendation, offered him the
position. Vallas was not aware that plaintiff had applied for
the position. The Board approved Vallas's decision.

Because
Vallas relied on Kase's recommendation of Kavey, and was
unaware of plaintiff's application, Kase served as the de
facto decisionmaker.[6] This case was filed in October 2014.
Neither party obtained a statement from Kase until January
2018. At her deposition, Kase testified that Kavey impressed
her with “his vision, and his ideas for conducting or
for implementing District-wide Physical Education Program in
the context of limited resources.” She said that
plaintiff did not exhibit “the same level of -- of
either vision or suggestions for implementing a District-wide
Physical Education and Health Program.” She also
testified that Denton had failed to demonstrate he was able
to manage district resources during his tenure as acting
Director. Prior to Kase's deposition, the Board cited
only Carroll's deposition testimony in support of its
decision to hire Kavey over plaintiff. Carroll testified that
she gave a three out of five rating to plaintiff and Denton,
and a four out of five rating to Kavey, citing his
“leadership voice.”

Plaintiff
contends that Kase's decision to recommend Kavey was
motivated by discrimination based on race and gender.
Plaintiff testified at her deposition that she was not aware
of any racially or sexually derogatory comments made by BBOE
administrators or board members, including Kase. However, she
had more seniority than Kavey and, in her view, was
objectively better qualified for the position of Director,
and therefore should have gotten the promotion under the
contract between BBOE and the teachers' union. At the
time, the contract stated: “[V]acanc[ies] shall be
filled on the basis of fitness for the vacant post, provided,
however that where two or more applicants are substantially
equal in fitness, the applicant with the greatest amount of
seniority in the Bridgeport School System shall be given
preference.”[7] Responding to Kase's deposition
testimony, plaintiff states that the interviewers never asked
her about managing resources and, had they asked, she would
have explained that she had several relevant experiences
managing budgets.[8]

Plaintiff
has also testified that she began applying for administrative
positions in 2006 and was rejected each time in favor of a
white male. In 2009, plaintiff brought suit against BBOE for
failing to promote her to the position of Director claiming
discrimination on the basis of age, race, and sex. See John
v. Bridgeport, 09-cv-378(VLB), 2011 WL 1106708 (D. Conn. Mar.
22, 2011). The case was dismissed on summary judgment. The
present suit arises from BBOE's failure to promote her to
the position in 2012.[9]

II.
Legal Standard

Summary
judgment may be granted when there is no genuine issue of
material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as
a matter of law. Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S.
317, 322 (1986). To avoid summary judgment, the non-moving
party must point to evidence that would permit a jury to
return a verdict in his or her favor. Anderson v. Liberty
Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 252 (1986). In determining
whether the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter
of law, a court must review all the evidence in the record.
In doing so, however, the court must view the evidence in the
light most favorable to the opposing party. Id. at
255. Under this standard, all evidence supporting the
position of the opposing party must be credited, with any
ambiguities resolved and all reasonable inferences drawn in
favor of that party. Importantly, although it is necessary to
review the record as a whole, evidence supporting the
position of the moving party must be disregarded unless a
jury would have to credit the evidence because it comes from
a disinterested source and is uncontradicted and unimpeached.
See Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Products, Inc., 530
U.S. 133, 150-51 (2000) (quoting 9A C. Wright & A.
Miller, Federal Practice & Procedure §
2529, at 300 (2d ed. 1995)). It is essential that care be
taken in applying this standard in order to preserve and
protect the Seventh Amendment right to trial by jury, which
is undermined by excessive use of summary judgment.
See A. Miller, The Pretrial Rush To Judgment:
Are The Litigation Explosion, ” “Liability
Crisis, ” And Efficiency Cliches Eroding Our Day In
Court And Jury Trial Commitments?, 78 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 982
(2003).

III.
Discussion

Title
VII discrimination claims are analyzed under the
burden-shifting framework set forth in McDonnell Douglas
Corp. v. Green,411 U.S. 792 (1973). First, the
plaintiff must meet the “minimal” burden of
establishing a prima facie case by showing: “(1) that
[she] falls within the protected group, (2) that [she]
applied for a position for which [s]he was qualified, (3)
that [she] was subject to an adverse employment decision and
(4) that the adverse employment decision was made under
circumstances giving rise to an inference of unlawful
discrimination.” Byrnie v. Town of Cromwell, Bd. Of
Educ., 243 F.3d 93, 101 (2d Cir. 2001) (citing
McDonnell Douglas, 411 U.S. at 802). If the
plaintiff establishes a prima facie case, the burden shifts
to the defendant to articulate a “legitimate,
non-discriminatory reason for the employment decision.”
Id. at 102. If the defendant meets this burden, the
burden shifts back to the plaintiff to “show that the
proffered reason was pretextual and that, more likely than
not, the true reason was the illegal discrimination that the
plaintiff alleged.” Scaria v. Rubin, 117 F.3d
652, 654 (2d Cir. 1997). “At summary judgment in an
employment discrimination case, a court should examine the
record as a whole, just as a jury would, to determine whether
a jury could reasonably find an invidious discriminatory
purpose on the part of an employer.” Byrnie,
243 F.3d at 102. To meet her ultimate burden, plaintiff need
only show that “an improper consideration was ‘a
motivating factor' for [the] adverse employment
decision.” Gross v. FBL Fin. Servs., Inc., 557
U.S. 167, 174 (2009) (quoting 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(m)).

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;BBOE
contends that plaintiff has failed to meet her initial burden
of presenting a prima facie case.[10] It is
well-established, however, that when the position in question
is given to someone outside the protected class, that fact
alone is sufficient to give rise to an inference of
discrimination at the prima facie stage. See Zimmermann
v. ...

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